As we’ve discussed elsewhere on our site, the terms “mobility” and “flexibility” are sometimes used interchangeably in our society. Once we’ve worked with a patient on understanding the difference, the next question then becomes, which is more important, mobility or flexibility?
In general, our answer to patients is:
Mobility is generally what we’re after in all of our movement work in physical therapy, including when we train flexibility. For this reason, we would argue that flexibility is more of a means to an end, whereas pain-free mobility is the end goal, and therefore more “important.”
However, there is some nuance to this answer. In this article, we’ll walk you through the rationale for our argument above, and provide some practical solutions to follow as you strive to improve your body’s functionality and pain-free movement ability.
Is mobility or flexibility more important?
In discussing which is more important, we’ve got to first lay the groundwork by way of providing definitions for mobility vs flexibility. For our purposes:
- Flexibility is defined as the ability of a joint to move through its full range of motion without pain. Think of the classic “hurdler” stretch for the hamstring, where we’re essentially allowing gravity to provide the resistance that stretches the musculature. Because we are not actively “pulling” our leg toward our chest, we are simply working flexibility in this drill.
- Mobility is defined as our ability to freely and voluntarily move a joint without pain. Think of your ability to stretch your arms above your head. The voluntary range of motion you have is controlled by a number of factors, including the flexibility of the surrounding musculature, the strength of the musculature surrounding the shoulder joint, and psychological factors such as fear of injury.
In the examples above, if we improve the ability of our hamstring to stretch such that we’re able to get into a deeper and deeper stretch, then we have improved our flexibility, but not necessarily our mobility.
Conversely, if we improve the joint’s range of motion in the overhead position, where we’re actively and voluntarily moving the joint using our own musculature, then we’ve improved our mobility.
Mobility should be the goal
As physical therapists, we look at everything through the lens of functionality. Our end goal is for our patients to resolve their musculoskeletal issues so that they can resume their daily activities without pain, discomfort, and dysfunctional movement leading to further injury.
With that in mind, we would argue that mobility is more “important” because it is far more likely to be the limiting factor in your daily living than the flexibility of a particular muscle group.
Though individual contexts matter, it’s far less common for us to have to contort our bodies into stretched positions (flexibility) during the day than it is for us to have to voluntarily assume “stretched” positions while engaging and coordinating various muscle groups (think bending over to pick up a child, placing a box onto a shelf overhead, or getting down on one knee).
Does this mean flexibility isn’t important?
We urge our readers NOT to get the impression that our argument above and take from it that flexibility isn’t important. Quite the opposite:
We would argue that flexibility IS important because it’s a huge contributing factor that can limit mobility. For this reason, anyone who desires to improve their mobility should probably be doing some kind of flexibility training in tandem with whatever other training they’re doing.
Returning to the example of overhead mobility discussed above, we observe that our ability to access a full and pain-free range of motion overhead can be limited by many, muscle groups that attach to the shoulder joint and upper spine:
- The latissimus dorsi
- The teres major
- The pectoralis major,
- The subscapularis
- The biceps
- The trapezius
In our hypothetical patient who struggles with overhead mobility, engaging in stretches to improve the flexibility of the above muscle groups would be a major part of improving the patient’s overhead mobility, and they would likely see a mobility improvement just from training their flexibility alone.
Additionally, developing flexibility takes time. We recommend that you begin training your flexibility right from the beginning, in tandem with whatever other modalities you plan to use.
Other limiting factors in mobility
We mentioned above that flexibility is only one of a number of factors that may limit a given patient’s joint mobility. Outside of utilizing dynamic stretches and static stretches to develop good flexibility, the following factors are a good place to put your attention if your goal is to develop good mobility:
Strength
Many folks don’t typically think of muscular strength when the topic of mobility and flexibility comes up. However, this is a mistake; the central nervous system will naturally limit your mobility if you lack the control (aka strength) in various positions.
Our ability to coordinate and contract the target musculature in order to hold a particular position with good strength and stability can have a huge impact on mobility. This is why we generally see people become more mobile as they get stronger.
This is one of many reasons that most physical therapy treatment plans include strengthening exercises as well as flexibility and mobility drills.
Movement quality
While we certainly don’t intend to scare anyone off from movement, if a patient or trainee exhibits unconventional or dysfunctional movement patterns, then they may be inadvertently causing their own pain.
Having a trained eye watch your movement and make course corrections as you perform the various exercises can go a long ways towards preventing injury and alleviating existing painful movement patterns.
Individual bone structures
Though we often hear the phrase “everyone’s different,” it’s still common to try and pigeon-hole ourselves into the movement patterns we see others performing with ease.
We’ve all known someone in our life who can do a full split with little or no training. While it’s certainly true that these individuals are generally very flexible, it’s probably also true that their individual bone structures are simply conducive to getting into those positions.
We encourage readers not to compare themselves with others, but simply to engage in mobility training that serves their individual body type, and to see each improvement as a win.
Psychological factors
Another often overlooked factor in mobility is the psychological element. We’ve discussed many times on our site that pain is an emotional experience resulting from actual or perceived tissue damage.
Consider that things such as injury history, fear of movement (fear of injury), and the dreaded “nocebo” effect can all affect your subconscious willingness to engage in movement. The same is true with many of our patients.
Sedentary lifestyle
Through a phenomenon called adaptive shortening, our body naturally tends to limit our mobility over time as the result of not accessing the various ranges of motion we are capable of. Due to the nature of this phenomenon, it will disproportionately affect adults (especially older adults).
If you find that basic positions like squatting, lunging, reaching overhead, or standing up tall aren’t as easy as they used to be, then it’s possible your lack of movement has been a contributing factor.
What to prioritize
If you’re looking to improve your pain-free range of motion, we recommend that you prioritize mobility improvements, as we do believe that mobility is more important than flexibility for living a functional life.
Improve mobility through flexibility training, learning proper movement patterns, improving your strength, and addressing any underlying concerns you have about the potential for injury or pain related to the movements you’re trying to improve upon.
Though there are countless resources online to engage in DIY physical therapy, the best results come as a result of working with a trained and objective third party, like a physical therapist, trainer, or movement specialist.
